No Quarter

Relaxing the rules to make it seem less absurd under reasonable examination is not playing fair.

it seems a pretty straightforward comparison -

Which is a greater sacrifice:

the young serviceman with no knowledge or guarantee of anything after death, that gives his life without demanding anything from those he saved?

OR

Being crucified, knowing that you will be right back in heaven in the blink of an eye. BUT, you also demand that everyone that will ever exists owes you BIGTIME or you are going to SUFFER FOREVER!
Put this into the context of an eternal being that can pretty much will away any bad memories of pain and has not regular concept of time since he dos not exist within any time contraints?

The answer is glaringly obvious. I'll give all you christians an infinite number of gueses to get it right. Sadly, you will all continue to get it wrong until the glad day comes that all religion is finally put on the shelf of history and a quaint, antiquated way to control people.

NQ

Angrillori

[fundy hat on]
But the serviceman deserved to die because he was a SINNER, Jebus was perfect and didn't deserve to die, therefore Jebus's was a sacrifice and the serviceman's wasn't.
[fundy hat off]

Yuck. I feel dirty all over. Seriously.

But unfortunately, that's drivel I've actually heard.

the_cave

I'm not relaxing the rules upon examination--it's an old Christian practice not to make judgments for god (though I admit many have been doing it for centuries...)

Quote:

Which is a greater sacrifice: the young serviceman with no knowledge or guarantee of anything after death, that gives his life without demanding anything from those he saved?

I'm not even sure I have to think that Jesus' sacrifice is greater than that one. But I should also add--

Quote:

Being crucified, knowing that you will be right back in heaven in the blink of an eye.

I'm also not sure he knew that, and I don't think I'm alone in that. The gospel of Mark sure makes it sound ambiguous.

Quote:

BUT, you also demand that everyone that will ever exists owes you BIGTIME or you are going to SUFFER FOREVER!

The nature of Hell has been debated for a long time, and personally I think its subject to a lot of interpretation. Again, there are fundamentalist positions, and there are liberal positions. I don't deny that a lot of Christians have made exactly the claims you attribute to them.

Quote:

Put this into the context of an eternal being that can pretty much will away any bad memories of pain

Can he? Not sure about that either...or even if he can, maybe he doesn't...

Quote:

and has not regular concept of time since he dos not exist within any time contraints?

Well, he must have some concept of time, since he became human. I'm just arguing from traditional theology...

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I'll give all you christians an infinite number of gueses to get it right.

Well, thanks, that's pretty charitable of you, all things considered.

MortalWombat

I believe the going rate back then was thirty pieces of silver.

No Quarter

the_cave,

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I said:

Which is a greater sacrifice:

the young serviceman with no knowledge or guarantee of anything after death, that gives his life without demanding anything from those he saved?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You said:

I'm not even sure I have to think that Jesus' sacrifice is greater than that one.
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If you do not think it is any greater than what us mere mortals can do up, why, assuming that you do, base the necessity for your allegiance to god upon this sacrifice? I mean, what's the big freaking deal then? Seems like christianity needs this to be special to explain why we better give it all to jesus or else.

As far as not making judgements for god goes, every fucking christian I have ever met (and unfortunately I used to be one!) makes judgements for god and on god every day when they interpret the bible to mean whatever they want it to mean to support whatever dogma they choose to abide by. There is not an objective thought that EVER crosses a christian mind. It is all filtered through a magical fairy tale mesh that alters reality for the true believer. Everything the christian does is run through this filter and he makes judgements on what god must want him to do, or judgements on what god must have meant when he caused to have written two contrasting passages in the bible. It casues you to sound crazy and seem like an absolute idiot when trying to explain it to us unsaved souls.

If the bible was actually clear and concise, this would not be necessary, but Mr. perfect pants, the almighty father of everything could not quite figure out how to do that in his omnipotent perfection could he?

At a BARE MINIMUM, I would assume you could rationally hold god up to the same moral standard you would hold your fellow man up to and god should come up the winner, but time and time again, he loses! Of course, we are not meant to understand god's purposes. We are also not meant to question them or apply reason to them.


NQ

Doctor X

No Quarter:

Oh yeah?!! Could this 18 year-old walk on water or curse fig trees?

Seriously, good point often forgotten. The "heaping" of pain and suffering upon Junior--assuming he was executed--is apology to make his death that much more extraordinary. There are far more horrible ways to die than crucifixion, frankly.

Much of the theology is apology for a man who never returned.

--J.D.

No Quarter

I think impalement would be pretty miserable. Slow death by cancer is apparently much worse. (I am unfortunately seeing a friend of my wife's die over the course of two year's time. Slow death with a gradual loss of quality of life and dependance on others).

Of course, if I knew that it would all just go away and I would soon be able to be back in heaven fucking around with the universe to my heart's content - well bring on the sharpened stakes - my ass is waiting! (there's a quote for posterity!)

NQ

Amaleq13

I would take any of the deaths mentioned before being burned at the stake.

Hawkpeter

It would make in interesting list...

"Great and significant people you will find in hell"

There are some truely great and heroic people who have made real sacrifices, often of their own mortality, for his and her fellow humans.

Any of these people would make better messiahs than a mangod. Someone who makes an unconditonal sacrifice is going to get my praise.

How is it that there are numerous storys of sacrifices and acts made by real humans that transcend ethnicity, history, wars and culture that are unanimous in their respect and meaning, but the story of Christ is so disregarded and questioned?

Dargo

As far as ultimate sacrifices go, Andrea Yates should top the list. She was willing to risk going to hell for all eternity to spare her children from the same fate. Jesus has got nothing on her.